The Deep (22 page)

“What are you going to do?” Lenny asked him.

“Me? Nothing. I'll be in a respectable bar somewhere seen by a lot of people. But you, Lenny, that's another matter. When that call comes in I want you to get Peddle. It's your baby and you're in charge. Chances are he took her someplace where he can squeeze it out of her.”

Holiday stopped there and said seriously, “Deep, you have a big feeling for that woman, don't you?”

I didn't answer, but he knew.

“You know what Peddle will do to her to get the information.”

“Damn it,” I grated, “she doesn't know anything!”

“No, sucker?” Lenny's face was a tight mask.

“Keep still, Lenny,” Holiday said sharply. To me, “If you know where he took her we might be able to help.”

Blankly, I shook my head. It was useless, absolutely useless.

“Then,” he added, “to get back to the original premise ... if
you
know where this information is and reveal it, we'll take care of Peddle but let the girl alone. Nothing can hurt us if we have that package.”

When I didn't answer he shrugged, “Have it your own way.”

Maxie stepped forward, grinning broadly across his moon face. “Chief, you didn't let me try. If I ...”

“Don't be silly. Deep here is in the same trap Benny Mattick was. He doesn't know a thing. Isn't that right, Deep? Of course it's right. He would have spilled his guts to save that woman if he knew anything. You can see it plain as day in his face.”

And there it was. I could be destroyed at any time at no cost. They didn't even have a choice to make now. The fact was simple. I had to die.

Holiday slipped into a raincoat and set a new Homburg on his head. He looked like a banker. He tapped Lenny's chest for emphasis. “I want at least thirty minutes, then do what you want with him.” He waved a thumb at me. “Keep Tony and Ed here ...”

“I don't need them.”

“Do as you're told.” He snapped. “When Peddle and the woman are located call one of our groups nearest the area and have them move in. I'll see that they are all standing by. They'll be informed to move only at your orders. It doesn't make any difference what happens to either Peddle or the girl, just be sure you come back here with that information. Is that understood?”

Lenny felt surly about it, but agreed. “I'll take care of it.”

At the door Holiday turned around and tipped his hat in my direction. “Very sorry about this, Deep. Try not to hold it against us. I know you realize there's nothing personal about it. I really like you.”

I wanted to say something smart but there was too much going on inside me to find anything at all to say. I sat there tied up like a dummy and watched Mr. Holiday and his entourage file out the door, until only Tony, his silent partner and Lenny were left.

And Lenny was smiling. He pulled on a pair of gloves and worked them down his fingers.

Tony got up, stretched, and lit a cigarette. “I'm go-in' down the comer for somethin' to eat. I ain't et all day.”

His partner spoke for the first time then. “Bring me back somethin',” then walked into the bedroom. I heard the bed creak as he flopped down on it.

Lenny grinned wickedly and said, “I've been waiting for this a long time.”

I spat on the floor in front of him. “You're too old, you pig. Your heart won't take it.”

“We'll see,” he said.

Then it began.

I knew I was on the floor. I knew there should have been pain, but the strange alchemy of the body had started and where the pain actually was I could feel only a throbbing sensation. My head pulsated with each heartbeat like a dam being attacked by floodwaters.

Vaguely, I heard Lenny call out for the other guy to come get me out of there.

He came reluctantly and tested my side with a foot. “Whatsa matter wit' leavin' him here?”

Lenny wasn't the old Lenny any more at all. He could talk it and he could think it, and he could even try to live up to the old days, but time had shrunken him inside and he couldn't take sight of the rough stuff any longer. “Just get him out of my sight and don't ask questions. Put him in the bedroom and stay there with him.”

“Crap. I wanted to sack out. After we knock him off we gotta go alla way to that stinkin' quarry in Jersey wit' him. I'm pooped.”

“Sleep in a chair. Get him inside.”

To drag me he had to untie me from the chair. I could tell when he did it only by the sounds and the way he rolled me around. There was no feeling at all in my hands and feet. I kept my eyes closed, though with the way they must have been swollen knew he couldn't have told whether they were open or shut anyway.

He got his hands under my armpits and dragged me across the room, into the bedroom, and let me flop on the rug beside the bed face down. With no more concern than if I had been dead he walked back outside, spoke to Lenny and made himself a drink.

I tried to move and managed to get halfway over. I brought my knees up and fought to get my hands under me. There was no way of feeling if I did or not; feeling had been strangled off from my shoulders down. But the sudden motion did do one thing. It brought the pain back, a great, sweeping tidal wave of pain that crashed through the barrier of numbness my body had set up and closed down on me like a monstrous pair of pincers. I let go with a terrible sound I couldn't help and went back on my face again.

The only good part about it was that the pain reached my hands and feet as the circulation was restored and although I was powerless to move them much I knew I could move them a little and it might be enough if I played it right.

When the guy came back he carried the two strands of ropes that had held me to the chair, knelt on the floor beside me and tied my hands behind my back. He finished that, threw a few loops around my feet, knotted them and got up and laid down in bed as though nothing had happened at all.

Outside Lenny was making himself another drink. He had two more within a few minutes and between them mouthed a few curses at the world in general.

On the bed the guy began to breathe slowly, but lightly. He wasn't quite asleep yet and I couldn't afford to disturb him now. My hands were still tingling, and though bound, were coming back to normal. There was nothing professional in the rope job the boy did on me and the slight amount of pressure I managed against his efforts was enough to allow me the slightest bit of slack.

I had to wait. I had to lie there and wait while I wanted to explode.

To take the tension off I forced myself to think. I tried to put the whole thing together in my mind and cull out the loose ends and eliminate the mistakes.

Now
there
was a poser. Alive, he was a threat. He wielded a power that could line up forces the way he wanted them, both political and illegal. Sure, even Holiday admitted that and Peddle proved it by being in the club. There were others involved to make that much certain.

But Holiday had said a peculiar thing. The syndicate didn't really
mind
Bennett. It was easier to take him than knock him over.
Why?

Back to Wilson Batten then. He laid a finger on Bennett that Helen had known too. Immaturity. Bennett hadn't really wanted much at all! His idea of bigness was really so small they could afford to let him have his way ... but what he had was big enough so that they played it his way all the way and without reservation.

No, the mob wanted him alive. They couldn't afford him dead at all.

Benny? Could Benny have killed him? Unlikely. Benny just didn't measure up to that kind of courage. He would have showed signs of what he had in mind and Bennett would have gotten there first. Or the mob. They'd hit Benny if they knew he was going after Bennett. With a power package, Benny would be more dangerous to them than Bennett by far.

Then there was Tally's death. Hers was the forgotten one.

And there was something else I almost forgot. Whoever killed Tally had killed Bennett and had tried to kill me.

The weapons?

Not a heavy caliber gun and a few well placed, immediately fatal shots the way it had happened to Augie and Lew James and Cat. Not the signs of an experienced pro.

A zip gun and a bottle.
A kid's trick. A lousy kid's trick that screwed up the works and started a chain of death that still wasn't over.

Sure, from the beginning it went like that. Take it the way a kid would ... he figured a guy like Bennett would have cash around and cased his place until he knew the routine. When he knew only Bennett and Dixie were in the house he waited and when Dixie went out, he went in. Bennett answered the door thinking it was Dixie back and there stood the kid.

The kid's first hit, maybe. He pulled the trigger and that's all he had, that one shot. He got Bennett in the neck ... maybe Bennett staggered and fell, but he wasn't dead. The kid saw that and panicked. While Bennett lay there he got in the elevator and took it down, forgetting to grab any loot.

I could feel the excitement rising in me. I tried to follow Bennett's actions and the kid's at the same time and it began to come out clear.

Naturally, it would have been a local punk, one of the neighborhood gang members. Bennett recognized him and knew where he'd run to and tried to cut him off. He went down the fire escape and through the yards behind the buildings the way I had followed Morrie Reeves after he killed Augie. Bennett had headed for that same alley Morrie had hoping to cut the kid off, all that time holding his hand over the hole in his neck.

And that was as far as he got. The internal hemorrhage killed him right there.

That was where the night people came in. Was Tally coming home from a drunk when she saw him? He must have been close to the mouth of the alley to be that easily seen from the street. I could see Tally in my mind, watch her take in the dead man with one grand look of pleasure, spit on him and walk away knowing that now the fun would begin.

Then Pedro ... he robbed the body and got off the scene.

But because of these two the picture had changed.

Why didn't he run? Could it be that he was seen in the area by Tally or at least thought he had been seen? He shouldn't have killed her; Tally would never have spoken against him. Or maybe that the body was almost lying in the killer's back yard and its very presence would mean an unnecessary danger if anybody put two and two together. A zip gun meant a kid gang. The Scorps?

So the killer carried Bennett back. Bennett was no lightweight, but even a panicky old lady can do remarkable things. He got him back through the rear, took him up the fire escape, dumped him in his own living room and left.

A cute detail had fooled the police. Bennett had bled a lot when he was first hit and messed the room up just right. Who would have thought that he had gone out and been returned to the same spot again?

Lenny broke a bottle outside. He cursed too loudly to be sober and stumbled into the living room. My head was turned so I could see him through the doorway and when he stopped, cursed again and walked into the darkened bedroom I thought it was over.

“That stinking Knight Owl Club. That whole bunch of stinking jerks!” He took another pull of his drink and yanked the door shut after him.

It was funny, in a way. Just a cellar club from years ago, but the repercussions never ended. They just could-n' t get it out of their heads. The K.O.'s dominated their lives, everyone who was touched by it.

Nostalgia? Sentimentality? Environment?

It was like I told Helen ... it was all tied up with the club.

And then the sudden truth came at me like a bomb that grew and grew in size as you watched it and the whole thing burst open in a wild sheet of flame that left you too stunned to do more than gasp.

It was all there. It fell right in place. I had pieces and Helen had pieces and Batten had pieces and Roscoe had pieces and Lenny had pieces and Holiday had pieces and now it was one big whole and it could be too late at any moment to pull the cork.

On the bed the guy's breathing was deep and regular. I tried the ropes, being as quiet as I could. I let my hands hang lifelessly so that no muscular activity would swell them, then began the slow process of stretching and loosening my bonds.

Twice, the man on the bed turned, saying something in his half-sleep, then drifted off again. Each time I waited until I was sure he wouldn't hear the small noises I made, then went back to work on the ropes.

One hand came loose, taking skin with it and I unwound the length of rope from my other and freed my feet. When it was done I lay there until I knew I was all right again, then got up quietly and did what I had to do to the guy on the bed.

He was no trouble at all.

He lay there unconscious, a gag in his mouth, breathing heavily through his nose while I tied him hands-to-feet with a single strand of rope that he wasn't about to loosen. As I finished I heard the phone ring and Lenny move to answer it. He said, “Yeah ... yeah. I got it,” then tapped the receiver bar down, held it and dialed a number. When it answered he said, “Dave? How many you got there? Yeah, six will do it. Holiday call? Okay, then you know you take orders from me this trip. No stay there. I want in on this so don't move without me. Stay in the neighborhood and when I drive up you can move in. Hit Peddle and take the girl alive. We'll do the whole thing inside there where nobody will hear a thing. No, you'll know me. I'll drive the red and white panel truck that belongs to the restaurant. When you see it, start moving in. Just you wait until I get there, understand?” He grunted and slammed the phone back, then let out a little laugh, swirled the ice in his drink, finished it and set the glass down. I heard him walk toward the door. I got behind it. He still had my gun.